Abstract
This manuscript provides a review of the clinical case study within the field of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic treatment. The method has been contested for methodological reasons and because it would contribute to theoretical pluralism in the field. We summarize how the case study method is being applied in different schools of psychoanalysis, and we clarify the unique strengths of this method and areas for improvement. Finally, based on the literature and on our own experience with case study research, we come to formulate nine guidelines for future case study authors: (1) basic information to include, (2) clarification of the motivation to select a particular patient, (3) information about informed consent and disguise, (4) patient background and context of referral or self-referral, (5) patient's narrative, therapist's observations and interpretations, (6) interpretative heuristics, (7) reflexivity and counter-transference, (8) leaving room for interpretation, and (9) answering the research question, and comparison with other cases.
Highlights
Psychoanalysis has always been, according to its inventor, both a research endeavor and a therapeutic endeavor
Each psychoanalytic school has a different set of theories but there are differences in the training of new psychoanalysts and in the therapeutic techniques that are applied by its proponents
We were not really surprised to find that Object Relations psychoanalysis and Ego psychology were the most dominant schools in the field of psychoanalytic case studies, as they are very present in European, Latin-American and North-American psychoanalytic institutes
Summary
Edited by: Simon Boag, Macquarie University, Australia Reviewed by: Lewis Kirshner, Harvard Medical School, USA Horst Kächele, International Psychoanalytic University, Germany Anne Worthington, Middlesex University, UK *Correspondence: Jochem Willemsen is lecturer at the University of Essex. His research interests include the methodology and epistemology of case study research and meta-studies of case studies within the field of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. He is currently research director in the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex. He has been working for years as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice. This manuscript provides a review of the clinical case study within the field of psychoanalytic and psychodynamic treatment.
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